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Saturday, April 28, 2007

Playing The Jewish CardThe pathetic last gasp of the Ecumaniacs

There have been reports swirling that certain so-called experts are concerned that the Tridentine Mass, in and of itself, may be "harmful" to Catholic-Jewish relations. I'm sure all these "experts" will soon be renting a studio apartment so they can get together and bitch about how much they hate the Latin Mass.

But what exactly is it that has the ecumaniacs all in an uproar? According to Reuters (via the San Diego Union), it's because;

The problem is that the traditional texts include passages that say the Jews live in 'blindness' and 'darkness' and pray 'that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ.'

(Insert sarcasm here) Nooooooo! Do you mean to tell me that it's the official teaching of The Catholic Church that those who live without Jesus in their hearts are theologically considered blind and living in darkness? And we even have the audacity to pray that non-Catholics will accept Jesus? (Insert even more sarcasm here) Nooooooo!!! Who da thunk it!?

(Insert seriousness here) I'm sure that many a Jew would consider me blind and living in darkness because I refute Judaism. I can live with that. I may not agree with 'em, but at least I can respect 'em for sticking by their guns. The same can't be said of these wishy-washy "Progressives" within our own Church?

Also, that particular prayer isn't part of the standard Tridentine Mass itself. It's only used during Good Friday, and ONLY on Good Friday, not year-round. And the words "blindness" and "living in darkness" and "acknowledging (accepting) Jesus" have not a damn thing to do with anti-Semitism... but are more correctly prayers of Christian Charity. After all, as it not The Great Commission itself that Our Lord and Savior gave us to "go forth ye, to all nations and Baptize..."?

Who better to pray for the conversion of, if not the Jews? The same ones who God Himself called His Chosen People? The same ones who Christ was born of? The same ones who were His first followers?

Catholicism is the natural theological flow for Judaism. And many Jews did the correct thing and DID follow Christ. Unfortunately, most didn't. And like The Prodigal Son, we await their return. Not with hate, but with prayerful joy. Yes, it really is that simple.

Anyhow, want even more proof that The Latin Mass breeds hate and discontent? Again, from Reuters;

In a statement on the issue, the Boston College Centre for Christian-Jewish Learning warned the old prayers could also offend Muslims, because they urge the conversion of 'infidels.'

Aw hell... whatever we do... don't piss off the moslems! Oh, by the way, by definition, moslems most certainly are infidels. Sheesh... since when did "Thou Shalt Not Offend" become the 11th Commandment?

But the one thing about this news story that has me the most concerned is a quote from some mysterious, and of course... unnamed... "Church source" who stated that even if the Latin Mass was freed, that 'Vatican II theology is not being invalidated by this,' he said.

Wh-wh-WHAT!!?? "Vatican II theology"? What the hell is that? Did God change in 1962... or is it true that "The Spirit of Vatican II" crowd really have been trying to form an entirely new religion? I tell ya, I wish the Motu Proprio would hurry up and see the light of day so all these Roman Protestants can haul ass and become the Episcopalians they've always had wet dreams about.

19 Comments:

"I wish the Motu Proprio would hurry up and see the light of day so all these Roman Protestants can haul ass and become the Episcopalians they've always had wet dreams about."

And the Cave echoed with the roar of "AMEN!"

Better that only a few Catholics should be left, staunch and sincere in their religion, than that they should, remaining many, desire as it were, to be in collusion with the Church's enemies and in conformity with the open foes of our faith. –St. Peter Canisius (1521-1597)

I am all FOR "offending" Muslims, their most fervent practitioners follow their "prophet's" murdering, theiving, child molesting ways. They consider Mohammed to be the most perfect human whoever lived. Read their nasty Koran sometime, it would read like a comedy if they didn't take it so seriously.

As for the Jewish people, why not just let them LIVE in peace. God certainly did make a Covenant with them and called them His Chosen people. If that's good enough for God, that's more than good enough for this Catholic.

The Novus Ordo Missae needs some scrutiny from the Jewish-card players, too. From today's reading (Gasp!):

"When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and with violent abuse contradicted what Paul said. Both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, "It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first, but since you reject it and condemn yourselves as unworthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.....The Jews...incited the women of prominence who were worshipers and the leading men of the city, stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their territory. So they shook the dust from their feet in protest against them..."

Tsk. Paul and Barnabas were guilty of disrupting Jewish-Christian dialog. Maybe the problem is the Book of Acts; lots of references to Jews behaving badly -- dare I say perfidiously --in those pages. Clearly, we need a more sensitive translation.

Paul admonishes both jewish and gentile christians in his letters. The fact of the matter is that the jewsh community has been awfully catholic friendly lately whilst the muslim community has not. Why would we want to offend our allies? We recognize the old covenants, even if we believe they have been surpassed. Some of the best catholics were jews, these admonishments are no way to make new conversions.

Let's call a trad a trad. You folks are so hungery for a return of the tridentine that you don't want this small bit of charity to slow you down.

Me? I think it would be horrible to remove the bit about jews because then the pope can claim he's not a Flip-Flopper and that the tridentine had to be improved before release. That will put a hiccup in all the liberal arguments I had planned that would tack the tridentine onto vatican fallibility along with slavery and the heliocentric solar system.

"Who better to pray for the conversion of, if not the Jews? The same ones who God Himself called His Chosen People? The same ones who Christ was born of? The same ones who were His first followers?"

OK I get that, but they're still our allies and we don't need to piss them off for no reason. It's just not good tactics. Furthermore, singling them out might make them harder to convert rather than easier.

In any event, that's what the flavor of the discussion should be. Instead, it seems that all the impatient folks arond the blogosphere seem to want to claim the jews are dictating the liturgy to us. In reality their just impatient for the tridentine and don't want to wait for further discussion. Patience and obedience, two virtues...that conservatives ought to be better at than me! ;)

PS - There are other saintly jewish converts as well. Ven. Francis Lieberman comes to mind, I think there are web pages of such converts but I don't have them handy. A jewish convert makes a b*d*ss catholic.

"I wish the Motu Proprio would hurry up and see the light of day so all these Roman Protestants can haul ass and become the Episcopalians they've always had wet dreams about."

Ok, I'll grant you some points on the whole 'it's not tactics it's objective truth' thing.

But note a couple of other pointies: 'hurry-up'

This is trad impatience. Mother church moves slowly, and hopefully, correctly.

Now about wanting Roman Protestants to haul ass and become Episcopalians...

I believe that this was typed after the caveman ate a particularly old piece of Mastadon.

In the same comment box, we have someone playing the 'Shouldn't we pray for the conversion of jews?' card right next to the 'Let's kick all the catholics I don't like out of church' card. See how those two cards aren't in the same suit?

But I really shouldn't be saying all of this. A drammatic flip-flop on the tridentine will be another banana clip of liberal ammo for me, right next to the heiocentric solar system clip, and the slavery grenade.

In the same comment box, we have someone playing the 'Shouldn't we pray for the conversion of jews?' card right next to the 'Let's kick all the catholics I don't like out of church' card. See how those two cards aren't in the same suit?

Jews aren't trying to rape Holy Mother The Church on a daily basis. Roman Protestants are. I invite you to read some of info I've posted on the warnings that Christ sent His mother to give to us (Our Lady of Akita).

The whole "Cardinal against Cardinal... bishop against bishop... priest against priest" stuff is just slightly disconcerting.

Well OK. At this point in the discussion I think we have our positions that seem a bit inflexible. I'll attempt to summarize...

WC: The conservatives/traditionalists would be best of adopting the most mature, charitable, call to conversion they possibly can rather than single out any specific group. But I don't realy care because I'd just as soon have it as an arguing point later.

VSC:The jews are super special and ought to be given special attention towards conversion and I solemnly swear that I am not just impatient to get the tridentine back.

EXCATLY!! The Truth usually IS inflexible. Example... was Moses given the 10 Commandments, or the 10 Suggestions?

WC: The conservatives/traditionalists would be best of adopting the most mature, charitable, call to conversion they possibly can rather than single out any specific group. But I don't realy care because I'd just as soon have it as an arguing point later.

VSC:The jews are super special and ought to be given special attention towards conversion and I solemnly swear that I am not just impatient to get the tridentine back.

Is that at all accurate?

Not really.... Try this instead;

VSC: Jews have a place of precedence in our prayers of conversion (gee, didn't I say that already?). I solemnly swear that I am not just impatient to get the Tridentine back just because I think that Latin is really, really cool. Rather, because the Tridentine, among other things, exudes respect, reverence and a sense of the sacred, unlike the Novus Ordo, which reeks of a bad Off-Broadway musical.

WC: The Liberals/Modernists would be best of adopting the most mature, charitable, call to their own conversion by abandoning their brief, but almost amusing (if it wasn't so sad) flirtation with Protestantism. But I don't realy care because I'd just as soon have it as an arguing point later.

"Then the disciples came and said to him, 'Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they when they heard this saying?' He answered, '...Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.'" (Mt. 15:12)

Who were the 'blind men' the Pharisees as blind guides were leading astray? The disciples. Not only is not believing in Christ, without whom no one can go to the Father, a spiritual blindness, but so also is worrying about whether we offend others by professing the truth. We may very well also begin praying that the 'veil' may be lifted from those who care more about whether we are offending others than about the truth.

" Not only is not believing in Christ, without whom no one can go to the Father, a spiritual blindness, but so also is worrying about whether we offend others by professing the truth."

And so brother, I profess to you the truth as I see it: we should be praying for all non-believers not just jews. God does not single them out as the only people worthy of our prayers for conversion. Did you not pray for all non-believers at Easter? Our church did. I thought that was standard issue.